Analysis: The Most Popular Character Names in Movies

Anyone who's ever written fiction will know the challenge of finding a good name for a character. Many articles have been written and hours spent on the subject over the years, and the challenge always remains: how to come up with a name that captures the character without distracting the audience with something too unusual.

I thought it might be interesting to look at our database, which contains over 80,000 acting credits, to see what the most common character names are. The results show not only some of the most common first names, but also the bit parts that show up again and again and again. They also reveal that movie writers generally stick to the rule of never having a character's name end with the letter S -- there's only a single instance in the top 100.

Lincoln

The Oscar nominations were announced this morning, and there's certainly a lot to talk about. There are some nominations that should surprise no one. For instance, Lincoln led the way with twelve nominations, and it has been seen as the major contender for a long time. However, there were also a few surprise nominations and some major snubs. Here are the list of nominations, and some reactions.